son of man

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Monday, 21 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Matthew 12 : 38-42

Then some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign, but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the depths of the earth.”

“At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and here there is greater than Solomon.”

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Sunday, 20 July 2014 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 13 : 24-43

Jesus told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.”

“When the plants sprouted and produced grain, the weeds also appeared. Then the servants of the owner came to him and said, ‘Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? Where did the weeds come from?'”

“He answered them, ‘This is the work of an enemy.’ They asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?’ He told them, ‘No, when you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let them just grow together until harvest; and at harvest time I will say to the workers : Pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them; then gather the wheat into my barn.'”

Jesus offered them another parable : “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, that a man took and sowed in his field. It is smaller than all other seeds, but once it is fully grown, it is bigger than any garden plant; like a tree, the birds come and rest in its branches.”

He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast that a woman took, and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole mass of dough began to rise.”

Jesus taught all this to the crowds by means of parables; He did not say anything to them without using a parable. So what the Prophet had said was fulfilled : I will speak in parables. I will proclaim things kept secret since the beginning of the world.

Then He sent the crowds away and went into the house, and His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” Jesus answered them, “The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed are the people of the kingdom; the weeds are those who follow the evil one. The enemy who sows the weeds is the devil; the harvest is the end of time, and the workers are the angels.”

“Just as the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom all that is scandalous and all who do evil. And these will be thrown in the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

“Then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. If you have ears, then hear.”

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Matthew 13 : 24-30

Jesus told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.”

“When the plants sprouted and produced grain, the weeds also appeared. Then the servants of the owner came to him and said, ‘Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? Where did the weeds come from?'”

“He answered them, ‘This is the work of an enemy.’ They asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?’ He told them, ‘No, when you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let them just grow together until harvest; and at harvest time I will say to the workers : Pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them; then gather the wheat into my barn.'”

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Friday, 18 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 12 : 1-8

It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at Your disciples! They are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”

Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did, when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, though neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?”

“I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words : It is mercy I want, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. Besides, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

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Friday, 11 July 2014 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 10 : 16-23

Look, I send you out like sheep among wolves. You must be as clever as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard with people, for they will hand you over to their courts, and they will flog you in their synagogues. You will be brought to trial before rulers and kings because of Me, so you may witness to them and the pagans.

But when you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say, or how you are to say it; when the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. For it is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father in you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of Me, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. I assure you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

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Tuesday, 1 July 2014 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 8 : 23-27

Jesus got into the boat and His disciples followed Him. Without warning a fierce storm hit the lake, with waves sweeping the boat. But Jesus was asleep. They woke Him up and cried, “Lord save us! We are lost!”

But Jesus answered, “Why are you so afraid, you of little faith?” Then He stood up and rebuked the wind and sea; and it became completely calm. The disciples were astonished. They said, “What kind of Man is He? Even the winds and the sea obey Him.”

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Wednesday, 28 May 2014 : 6th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear how privileged we are to have known the Lord, who had been revealed to us through the Apostles and the disciples of Christ, and through their successors, who continuously preach the Good News and make it known to us. The Greeks in today’s first reading and their predecessor did not have such a privilege, and for many generations, they had lived in darkness and in ignorance, not knowing the truth and the intention which God has for them.

I have once mentioned about the faith of the Greeks in the Hellenic era and earlier, and those of us who know the Greco-Roman mythology and the ubiquitous reference to their gods even to the modern era will know it quite well. There were many gods and goddesses in the Greco-Roman pantheon, each of whom represented an aspect of nature and the world, which they considered to be living and sentient as divines.

This was why the Hellenic people at the time worshipped those gods and built magnificent statues and temples for them, and also offered sacrifices in various kinds to these gods, and yet they did not truly know them. The same happened essentially everywhere else in the world, with the people worshipping aspects and events of nature as divine, and treated them as gods and goddesses.

But if you ask me, these obeisances and devotions are nothing more than mankind’s insecurities, fears, and desires that came forward and end up manifesting as these observations, these worships, and these gods with their stories and mythologies. The mythology and the story behind the gods are often mankind’s attempts to explain the natural phenomena around them and linking them to divine presence.

But these were crafted out of human understanding, and not because of any divine truth and revelations. And they were false, and they misled mankind to believe in the falsehoods, and who fed all these? The devil did. He is most pleased when mankind was misled by lies and misunderstandings, or the twisting of wisdom.

Mankind desires for the love from a superior being, someone whom they know to be the One, the Lord and God who created them, who cared for them, and who provided for them daily and filled them with His Spirit. But not everyone has an idea, of how to approach the Lord, or know how He is like, and that is why, so many people went wayward and away from the Lord, led by the lies of the devil.

God made Himself manifest first to the people of Israel, to Abraham and his descendants, to whom He revealed some of His truth and love, and which He continued to reveal over time through the prophets and the judges. Through them the people of God received more and more knowledge about God and His infinite love for us. But sadly, the people often did not remain faithful and they disobeyed Him despite knowing the truth.

That was why Jesus came into this world, to be the One, who not only revealed the fullness and perfection of God’s love and truth to mankind, but also to be the One through whose truth, made mankind worthy again of Himself, and by dying and by His resurrection, made the plain truth about Himself visible to all, and rose up from among mankind, His witnesses to proclaim that truth to all peoples, of all nations.

Today we are also urged, to cast away the lies, the veil of lies and darkness that still remain, if any, un our hearts and minds. If the people at the time of St. Paul failed to see God in His truth because their hearts were closed within a veil of darkness crafted by men, within layers of superstitions and false faith in tales and mythologies, then we in this world today suffer from the same thing, that is the darkening of our hearts and minds by the concerns of this world, that is by material possessions, and other forms of the pleasures of the flesh.

Let us all today be courageous and be firm in saying no to Satan, and rejecting all of his lies, so that we may finally pierce through the veil of darkness he has cast around us. May we be truly faithful and be good servants and children of God, and be worthy through our words, actions and deeds, which are always in the mold and following the example of Jesus our Lord and Saviour. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 28 May 2014 : 6th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 17 : 15, 22 – Acts 18 : 1

Paul was taken as far as Athens by his escort, who then returned to Beroea with instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible.

Then Paul stood up in the Areopagus hall and said, “Athenian citizens, I note that in every way you are very religious. As I walked around looking at your shrines, I even discovered an altar with this inscription : ‘To an unknown God.’ Now, what you worship as unknown, I intend to make known to you.”

“God, who made the world and all that is in it, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, being as He is Lord of heaven and earth. Nor does His worship depend on anything made by human hands, as if He were in need. Rather it is He who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone.”

“From one stock He created the whole human race to live throughout all the earth, and He fixed the time and the boundaries of each nation. He wanted them to seek Him by themselves, even if it were only by groping for Him, succeed in finding Him. Yet He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your poets have said : ‘for we too are His offspring.'”

“If we are indeed God’s offspring, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a statue of gold or silver or stone, a product of human art and imagination. But now God prefers to overlook this time of ignorance and He calls on all people to change their ways. He has already set a day on which He will judge the world with justice through a Man He has appointed. And, so that all may believe it, He has just given a sign by raising this Man from the dead.”

When they heard Paul speak of a resurrection from death, some made fun of him, while others said, “We must hear you on this topic some other time.” At that point Paul left. But a few did join him, and believed. Among them went Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus court, a woman named Damaris, and some others.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

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Monday, 5 May 2014 : 3rd Week of Easter (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Today brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to keep the truth, stand by that truth and stay faithful to that truth. And what is this truth? It is the truth proclaimed by Christ Himself when He taught the people and His disciples, about His mission, His nature, and the nature of God’s salvation. It is also the truth proclaimed by Stephen the first deacon of the Church in today’s first reading against those who refused to believe in the truth.

As we all should know, this world is not for Christ and His truth, and indeed the world which is filled with the evil one’s influences and darkness, opposed Christ at every turn and at every possible opportunities. This is why, there will be many hurdles and obstacles in the way of those who speak for the truth, and in the way of those who work and pledge themselves to the truth of Christ, which is what we are all, brothers and sisters in Christ are supposed to do.

What is this truth? This truth is plain and simple, which lay open and available in the entirety of the teachings of the Church. That God is one and indivisible, and loving in of His aspects. But He exists in three separate and yet equal divine persons, that is Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father creates, the Son who is Word, blesses and carries out the work of the Father, and the Holy Spirit empowers and strengthens all. All three united in one, that is the essence of our faith in God who is the Trinity.

But that is not all, for God so loved the world and all of us His beloved creations who had fallen into sin and darkness, that He willingly laid aside His power and divinity in the person of the Son, who became incarnate into Man, to be one of us, through the Blessed Virgin Mary, and were born as Jesus the Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, fully divine and fully man.

Why? So that through the Son and His perfect obedience, He as the new Adam and the beginning of new life and new era, may cast away the veil and the darkness of mankind’s sins and rebellions, which began with the disobedience of the first Adam. That He became the perfect offering and sacrifice through whom the sins of mankind may be erased in its entirety and completeness, ridding them of the obstacle that barred them from returning to their loving Father.

Jesus spoke of Himself when He referred to the living bread of eternal life. That those who eat that bread will never die, not in a sense of literal death that we know of, that is the death of the physical body, which we all have to face at one point, at the very ends of our lives. What He referred to was the eternal death of the spirit, the total separation of our souls from the love of God, which is called hell, the state of hopelessness and eternal damnation.

This is what those who believe in Christ and His truth, will avoid in the end. They will not face this fate of eternal suffering. Although death may claim their bodies and their physical flesh, but it will not claim their souls, for their souls are pure and worthy of the Lord, and the Lord who loves us and gave Jesus for our sake will not let us to be claimed by death and sin. And in the end, even together with our bodies we will rise with Christ when He comes again at the end of time. Death has no power over any of us, as long as we believe sincerely and fully in God and His plan which He had revealed through Jesus.

It was the very same truth that Stephen the deacon had proclaimed to the people of God and to his prosecutors, the chief priests, the elders and the Pharisees and the Sadducees who themselves had been opposed to Christ since the very beginning. The same truth that they also refused to believe in, even after hearing them from Christ Himself, and then His Apostles and disciples, which includes Stephen.

Those people hardened their hearts against the Lord and participated actively in the resistance and hindrance of the good works of God in this world, deceiving many and preventing the salvation of many souls who remained lost to the darkness. And these are exactly who we should not become. We cannot refuse to accept the truth in God, and therefore, we must, without exception, receive the faith we received through the Church in its fullness.

And we have to be like Stephen too, who did not fear to state the truth, and preach the Good News, even against tough opposition and persistent rejection, for the sake of salvation of souls. Remember that the Lord loves all, even those who hated and rejected Him. He would not want them to be lost, unless if they continue to refuse to believe until it is far too late.

May God therefore guide us in our works, and encourage us with His strength, that we may carry out our duties, just as Stephen had done, in the footsteps of Christ, to preach His salvation to all the peoples of all nations with courage, for the sake of our salvation, all of us. May God guide us always as we walk in this path. Amen.

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Monday, 5 May 2014 : 3rd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 6 : 22-29

Next day the people, who had stayed on the other side, realised that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with His disciples; but rather, the disciples had gone away alone.

Bigger boats from Tiberias came near the place where all these people had eaten the bread. When they saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found Him on the other side of the lake, they asked Him, “Master, when did You come here?” Jesus answered, “Truly, I say to you, you look for Me, not because of the signs which you have seen, but because you ate bread and were satisfied. Work then, not for perishable food, but for the lasting food which gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give it to you, for He is the One on whom the Father has put His mark.”

Then the Jews asked Him, “What shall we do? What are the works that God wants us to do?” And Jesus answered them, “The work God wants is this : that you believe in the One whom God has sent.”

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Thursday, 24 April 2014 : Thursday within Easter Octave (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 24 : 35-48

Then the two disciples told what had happened on the road to Emmaus, and how Jesus had made Himself known, when He broke bread with them.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus Himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you.” In their panic and fright they thought they were seeing a ghost, but He said to them, “Why are you upset, and how does such an idea cross your minds?”

“Look at My hands and feet, and see that it is I Myself! Touch Me, and see for yourselves, for a ghost has no flesh and bones as I have!” As He said this, He showed His hands and feet.

In their joy they did not dare believe, and were still astonished; so He said to them, “Have you anything to eat?” And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish. He took it, and ate it before them. Then Jesus said to them, “Remember the words I spoke to you when I was still with you : ‘Everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.'” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

And He said, “So it was written : the Messiah had to suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead. Then repentance and forgiveness in His Name would be proclaimed to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.”